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Home Front: WoT
Bush warned against attacking Iran
2006-04-10
Critics of the Bush administration have expressed alarm over reports that the president is considering a military strike to knock out Iran's nuclear programme. Anthony Zinni, a retired general and former head of US Central Command, told CNN on Sunday that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would be extremely risky "Any military plan involving Iran is going to be very difficult. We should not fool ourselves to think it will just be a strike and then it will be over," said Zinni.
Actually, that's precisely what we should do: Strike them to take out the nuclear facilities and decapitate the ayatollahs, use ground troops only if necessary, and then leave it to the Iranians to clean up the mess, with the proviso that we'll hit them again if they don't.
"The Iranians will retaliate, and they have many possibilities in an area where there are many vulnerabilities, from our troop positions to the oil and gas in the region that can be interrupted, to attacks on Israel, to the conduct of terrorism."
And we have an equally wide range of options available to us. We don't have to waste time or resources occupying them, and without the ayatollahs' regime Israel becomes safer and the Shiite strain of terrorism loses its drivers. It'll wither and die.
But he said he had no detailed knowledge of the alleged military plans.
So what's his bitch?
John Kerry, a democratic senator and former presidential contender, also assailed the White House for what he said was its over reliance on military might. "That is another example of the shoot-from-the-hip, cowboy diplomacy of this administration. For us to think about exploding tactical nuclear weapons in some way is the height of irresponsibility. It would be destructive to any non-proliferation efforts and the military assessment is: It would not work," he told NBC television.
The only people who've talked about using tactical nuclear weapons are Seymour Hersch and a few other people whose opinions don't count. Bush hasn't been waving nukes and we don't need them. Our military has the capability to take out the Iranian regime just as quickly as we threw Sammy out. And after our experience in Iraq, I don't think we'll be as squeamish about inflicting large numbers of casualties on the enemy.
Both men made their remarks after the publication of two media reports this weekend that said George Bush, the US president, was seriously considering military action against Iran, including using nuclear weapons, amid a stalemate in diplomatic efforts.
Posted by:Fred

#15  and take out our old embassy in Tehran

Absolutely right, Frank. Those b@stards have it set up like some Madame Tussand's Waxworks of American Imperialist Humiliation. Imagine what a surprise it would be for that day's gawking crowd of gloaters when the whole place comes apart at the seams. Use white phosphorus to eliminate all traces.
Posted by: Zenster   2006-04-10 20:11  

#14  and take out our old embassy in Tehran, then side trips to unload remainders over South Lebanon and Bekaa on way home
Posted by: Frank G   2006-04-10 19:52  

#13  Actually, that's precisely what we should do: Strike them to take out the nuclear facilities and decapitate the ayatollahs, use ground troops only if necessary, and then leave it to the Iranians to clean up the mess, with the proviso that we'll hit them again if they don't.

Sounds like just the ticket to me.

Iran now, Pakistan later, unfortunately Saudi, probably, never.

And saddest of all is how Saudi Arabia needs a mega-@ss-whupping the mostest.

Old Patriot, it's nice to see we're finally starting to see eye-to-eye. We've got you over to using nukes during phase II of Iran's behavioral modification. That's a huge improvement over first use. As to your own order of battle, what's not to like?
Posted by: Zenster   2006-04-10 19:25  

#12  We need a good show of "Shock and Awe" - complete with massive B-52 raids over cities. We need to show to the entire world just what kind of damage we CAN inflict, if we choose.

Take out the Silkworm and Scud units.
Take out the airfields and aircraft.
Take out every military installation on the map.
Take out every building that we think might even
POSSIBLY be involved with nuke weapons.
Take out every place where we know the mad mullahs
of islam hide out.
Take out anything else that looks like it could
be a military target.
Take out all their ports and harbors and oil
export facilities.

THEN sit down with the survivors and discuss their "nuclear" program, and a bunch more.

It's called "negotiating from a position of strength", and it gets the attention of your adversaries. If they refuse to change, THEN you use nukes to clean up the mess.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2006-04-10 18:47  

#11  Bush is a proponent of good gun control(he uses both hands).

Let's hope so.
Posted by: lotp   2006-04-10 17:58  

#10  Bush said today that Hersch's article was "wild speculation". He also said that the US goal was that Iran not have nukes, not have the capability to build nukes, and not have the knowledge to build nukes. That's a pretty big hint that if an attack comes it will be such that Iran will never be able to reconstitute.
Posted by: HV   2006-04-10 17:56  

#9  No. I'm keeping it as a memento of what could have been.
Posted by: Sen. Bill Frist   2006-04-10 12:28  

#8  All right, will the joker who stole the sign pointing to White House 2008 please return it ASAP?
Posted by: Perfesser   2006-04-10 11:13  

#7  The Civil War wasn't over till Sherman waltzed through Georgia and South Carolina.

Hopefully victory can be achieved without stealing the livestock, destroying the rail infrastructure, and burning everything to the ground.
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-04-10 09:32  

#6  I am beginning to think we should send troops into Iran to just whip their ass and to leave calling cards so they don't forget we mean business. The Civil War wasn't over till Sherman waltzed through Georgia and South Carolina. We should do the same to Persia. Then we should withdraw to the Arab and Kurd parts which should be united with their Iraqi kin when that place dismembers.

We're going to have to Shermanize some country over there. Iran now, Pakistan later, unfortunately Saudi, probably, never.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2006-04-10 09:15  

#5   (...shoot-from-the-hip, cowboy diplomacy...).
That is not how is see Preis.Bush.Bush is a proponent of good gun control(he uses both hands).
Posted by: raptor   2006-04-10 08:39  

#4  Does Kerry know that Bush can't be re-elected again?

Or was he smoking pot and protesting something the day they went over that in highschool?
Posted by: Crairt Anginesing8770   2006-04-10 08:39  

#3  MadMoud = Kimmie = Chavez, etc > all demand their nations be invaded so that they can engage in asymmetric , alleged "People's War" against US imperialism when what they're really doing is supporting anti-American Americans and thier similar "Creeping Communism/Socialism" within America itself, where the Fed takes over everything domestically while failing overseas. Be it Arabs-Isreali Wars or Saddam per se, defeat after defeat has shown that the enemy's most costly or advanced Commie Bloc assets were no match for even elderly/primitive/obsolescing US assets. NO AMERICA SHOULD BE AFRAID OR ASHAMED OF WAR, NUKE WAR, OR EVEN THE DRAFT BECUZ AMERICA-ALLIES MUST EITHER RULE THE WORLD, OR BE DESTROYED, IFF ONLY BECUZ AMER'S ENEMIES ARE GIVING THEMSELVES THE SAME BASIC CHOICES.
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2006-04-10 03:23  

#2  There are no magical secret Iranian weapons. This is a state-of-the-art professional force against a Vietnam Era force commanded by Stone Age lunatics. It will be a wildly uneven contest, in our favor - if it comes.

President Bush faces a tough choice - and that doesn't come from the Mullahs' insanity - it comes from the weasels who infest our Congress, "think tanks", "international organizations", and their media co-conspirators. Despite the media drumbeat of articles like this, the US public seems to understand at the moment, as recent polls have clearly demonstrated, that Iran is a serious threat and a reckoning must surely come.

Public concern is just one of many concurrently rising and falling component indices -- so timing is everything. Those who demand their personal schedules must be accommodated will likely be unhappy. I find them amusing. Bush surely finds them irrelevant. As irrelevant as the restrictions against acting to end a threat to the security of the US, of Israel, of Europe, of the Gulf region.

He will accept the challenges that land on his desk during his tenure. He is not a cowardly populist. Bush will act.
Posted by: Unuque Uniger5695   2006-04-10 01:50  

#1  Zinni and Kerry don't play poker, do they?
Posted by: Fordesque   2006-04-10 00:57  

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